till their breath failed them and their hands and wrists were numbed and
cramped with fatigue. They were so well matched in courage, strength,
and address, that neither obtained the least advantage, till the
robber’s right foot catching a stone slid from under him, and thus he
fell to the ground at the mercy of his enemy. The thieves fled, and the
Raja, himself on his prize, tied his hands behind him, and brought him
back to the city at the point of his good sword.
The next morning Randhir visited his prisoner, whom he caused to be
bathed, and washed, and covered with fine clothes. He then had him
mounted on a camel and sent him on a circuit of the city, accompanied
by a crier proclaiming aloud: “Who hears! who hears! who hears! the king
commands! This is the thief who has robbed and plundered the city of
Chandrodaya. Let all men therefore assemble themselves together this
evening in the open space outside the gate leading towards the sea. And
let them behold the penalty of evil deeds, and learn to be wise.”
Randhir had condemned the thief to be crucified,[109] nailed and tied
with his hands and feet stretched out at full length, in an erect
posture until death; everything he wished to eat was ordered to him
in order to prolong life and misery. And when death should draw near,
melted gold was to be poured down his throat till it should burst from
his neck and other parts of his body.
In the evening the thief was led out for execution, and by chance the
procession passed close to the house of a wealthy landowner. He had a
favourite daughter named Shobhani, who was in the flower of her youth
and very lovely; every day she improved, and every moment added to
her grace and beauty. The girl had been carefully kept out of sight
of mankind, never being allowed outside the high walls of the garden,
because her nurse, a wise woman much trusted in the neighbourhood,
had at the hour of death given a solemn warning to her parents. The
prediction was that the maiden should be the admiration of the city,
and should die a Sati-widow[110] before becoming a wife. From that hour
Shobhani was kept as a pearl in its casket by her father, who had vowed
never to survive her, and had even fixed upon the place and style of his
suicide.
But the shaft of Fate[111] strikes down the vulture sailing above the
clouds, and follows the worm into the bowels of the earth, and pierces
the fish at the bottom of the ocean--how then can mortal man expect to
escape it? As the robber chief, mounted upon the camel, was passing to
the cross under the old householder’s windows, a fire breaking out in
the women’s apartments, drove the inmates into the rooms looking upon
the street.
The hum of many voices arose from the solid pavement of heads: “This is
the thief who has been robbing the whole city; let him tremble now, for
Randhir will surely crucify him!”
In beauty and bravery of bearing, as in strength and courage, no man
in Chandrodaya surpassed the robber, who, being magnificently dressed,
looked, despite his disgraceful cavalcade, like the son of a king. He
sat with an unmoved countenance, hardly hearing in his pride the scoffs
of the mob; calm and steady when the whole city was frenzied with
anxiety because of him. But as he heard the word “tremble” his lips
quivered, his eyes flashed fire, and deep lines gathered between his
eyebrows.
Shobhani started with a scream from the casement behind which she
had hid herself, gazing with an intense womanly curiosity into the
thoroughfare. The robber’s face was upon a level with, and not half a
dozen feet from, her pale cheeks. She marked his handsome features,
and his look of wrath made her quiver as if it had been a flash of
lightning. Then she broke away from the fascination of his youth and
beauty, and ran breathless to her father, saying:
“Go this moment and get that thief released!”
The old housekeeper replied: “That thief has been pilfering and
plundering the whole city, and by his means the king’s archers were
defeated; why, then, at my request, should our most gracious Raja
Randhir release him?”
Shobhani, almost beside herself, exclaimed: “If by giving up your whole
property, you can induce the Raja to release him, then instantly so do;
if he does not come to me, I must give up my life!”
The maiden then covered her head with her veil, and sat down in the
deepest despair, whilst her father, hearing her words, burst into a cry
of grief, and hastened to present himself before the Raja. He cried out:
“O great king, be pleased to receive four lakhs of rupees, and to
release this thief.”
But the king replied: “He has been robbing the whole city, and by reason
of him my guards have been destroyed. I cannot by any means release
him.”
Then the old householder finding, as he had expected the Raja
inexorable, and not to be moved, either by tears or bribes, or by
the cruel fate of the girl, returned home with fire in his heart, and
addressed her:
“Daughter, I have said and done all that is possible but it avails
me nought with the king. Now, then, we die.”
In the mean time, the guards having led the thief all round the city,
took him outside the gates, and made him stand near the cross. Then the
messengers of death arrived from the palace, and the executioners began
to nail his limbs. He bore the agony with the fortitude of the brave;
but when he heard what had been done by the old householder’s daughter,
he raised his voice and wept bitterly, as though his heart had been
bursting, and almost with the same breath he laughed heartily as at a
feast. All were startled by his merriment; coming as it did at a time
when the iron was piercing his flesh, no man could see any reason for
it.
When he died, Shobhani, who was married to him in the spirit, recited to
herself these sayings:
“There are thirty-five millions of hairs on the human body. The woman
who ascends the pile with her husband will remain so many years in
heaven. As the snake-catcher draws the serpent from his hole, so she,
rescuing her husband from hell, rejoices with him; aye, though he may
have sunk to a region of torment, be restrained in dreadful bonds, have
reached the place of anguish, be exhausted of strength, and afflicted
and tortured for his crimes. No other effectual duty is known for
virtuous women at any time after the death of their lords, except
casting themselves into the same fire. As long as a woman in her
successive transmigrations, shall decline burning herself, like a
faithful wife, in the same fire with her deceased lord, so long shall
she not be exempted from springing again to life in the body of some
female animal.”
Therefore the beautiful Shobhani, virgin and wife, resolved to burn
herself, and to make the next life of the thief certain. She showed
her courage by thrusting her finger into a torch flame till it became a
cinder, and she solemnly bathed in the nearest stream.
A hole was dug in the ground, and upon a bed of green tree-trunks were
heaped hemp, pitch, faggots, and clarified butter, to form the funeral
pyre. The dead body, anointed, bathed, and dressed in new clothes, was
then laid upon the heap, which was some two feet high. Shobhani prayed
that as long as fourteen Indras reign, or as many years as there are
hairs in her head, she might abide in heaven with her husband, and be
waited upon by the heavenly dancers. She then presented her ornaments
and little gifts of corn to her friends, tied some cotton round both
wrists, put two new combs in her hair, painted her forehead, and tied up
in the end of her body-cloth clean parched rice[112] and cowrie-shells.
These she gave to the bystanders, as she walked seven times round the
funeral pyre, upon which lay the body. She then ascended the heap of
wood, sat down upon it, and taking the thief’s head in her lap, without
cords or levers or upper layer or faggots, she ordered the pile to be
lighted. The crowd standing around set fire to it in several places,
drummed their drums, blew their conchs, and raised a loud cry of “Hari
bol! Hari bol! [113]” Straw was thrown on, and pitch and clarified
butter were freely poured out. But Shobhani’s was a Sahamaran, a blessed
easy death: no part of her body was seen to move after the pyre was
lighted--in fact, she seemed to die before the flame touched her.
By the blessing of his daughter’s decease, the old householder beheaded
himself.[114] He caused an instrument to be made in the shape of a
half-moon with an edge like a razor, and fitting the back of his neck.
At both ends of it, as at the beam of a balance, chains were fastened.
He sat down with eyes closed; he was rubbed with the purifying clay of
the holy river, Vaiturani[115]; and he repeated the proper incantations.
Then placing his feet upon the extremities of the chains, he suddenly
jerked up his neck, and his severed head rolled from his body upon the
ground. What a happy death was this!
The Baital was silent, as if meditating on the fortunate transmigration
which the old householder had thus secured.
“But what could the thief have been laughing at, sire?” asked the young
prince Dharma Dhwaj of his father.
“At the prodigious folly of the girl, my son,” replied the warrior king,
thoughtlessly.
“I am indebted once more to your majesty,” burst out the Baital, “for
releasing me from this unpleasant position, but the Raja’s penetration
is again at fault. Not to leave your royal son and heir labouring under
a false impression, before going I will explain why the brave thief
burst into tears, and why he laughed at such a moment.”
He wept when he reflected that he could not requite her kindness in
being willing to give up everything she had in the world to save his
life; and this thought deeply grieved him.
Then it struck him as being passing strange that she had begun to love
him when the last sand of his life was well nigh run out; that wondrous
are the ways of the revolving heavens which bestow wealth upon the
niggard that cannot use it, wisdom upon the bad man who will misuse it,
a beautiful wife upon the fool who cannot protect her, and fertilizing
showers upon the stony hills. And thinking over these things, the
gallant and beautiful thief laughed aloud.
“Before returning to my sires-tree,” continued the Vampire, “as I am
about to do in virtue of your majesty’s unintelligent reply, I
may remark that men may laugh and cry, or may cry and laugh, about
everything in this world, from their neighbours’ deaths, which, as a
general rule, in no wise concern them, to their own latter ends, which
do concern them exceedingly. For my part, I am in the habit of laughing
at everything, because it animates the brain, stimulates the lungs,
beautifies the countenance, and--for the moment, good-bye, Raja Vikram!”
The warrior king, being forewarned this time, shifted the bundle
containing the Baital from his back to under his arm, where he pressed
it with all his might.
This proceeding, however, did not prevent the Vampire from slipping back
to his tree, and leaving an empty cloth with the Raja.
Presently the demon was trussed up as usual; a voice sounded behind
Vikram, and the loquacious thing again began to talk.
THE VAMPIRE’S SIXTH STORY -- In Which Three Men Dispute about a Woman.
On the lovely banks of Jumna’s stream there was a city known as
Dharmasthal--the Place of Duty; and therein dwelt a certain Brahman
called Keshav. He was a very pious man, in the constant habit of
performing penance and worship upon the river Sidi. He modelled his own
clay images instead of buying them from others; he painted holy stones
red at the top, and made to them offerings of flowers, fruit, water,
sweetmeats, and fried peas. He had become a learned man somewhat late
in life, having, until twenty years old, neglected his reading, and
addicted himself to worshipping the beautiful youth Kama-Deva[116] and
Rati his wife, accompanied by the cuckoo, the humming-bee, and sweet
breezes.
One day his parents having rebuked him sharply for his ungovernable
conduct, Keshav wandered to a neighbouring hamlet, and hid himself in
the tall fig-tree which shadowed a celebrated image of Panchanan.[117]
Presently an evil thought arose in his head: he defiled the god, and
threw him into the nearest tank.
The next morning, when the person arrived whose livelihood depended on
the image, he discovered that his god was gone. He returned into the
village distracted, and all was soon in an uproar about the lost deity.
In the midst of this confusion the parents of Keshav arrived, seeking
for their son; and a man in the crowd declared that he had seen a young
man sitting in Panchanan’s tree, but what had become of the god he knew
not.
The runaway at length appeared, and the suspicions of the villagers fell
upon him as the stealer of Panchanan. He confessed the fact, pointed out
the place where he had thrown the stone, and added that he had polluted
the god. All hands and eyes were raised in amazement at this atrocious
crime, and every one present declared that Panchanan would certainly
punish the daring insult by immediate death. Keshav was dreadfully
frightened; he began to obey his parents from that very hour, and
applied to his studies so sedulously that he soon became the most
learned man of his country.
Now Keshav the Brahman had a daughter whose name was the Madhumalati or
Sweet Jasmine. She was very beautiful. Whence did the gods procure the
materials to form so exquisite a face? They took a portion of the most
excellent part of the moon to form that beautiful face? Does any one
seek a proof of this? Let him look at the empty places left in the moon.
Her eyes resembled the full-blown blue nymphaea; her arms the charming
stalk of the lotus; her flowing tresses the thick darkness of night.
When this lovely person arrived at a marriageable age, her mother,
father, and brother, all three became very anxious about her. For the
wise have said, “A daughter nubile but without a husband is ever a
calamity hanging over a house.” And, “Kings, women, and climbing plants
love those who are near them.” Also, “Who is there that has not suffered
from the sex? for a woman cannot be kept in due subjection, either by
gifts or kindness, or correct conduct, or the greatest services, or
the laws of morality, or by the terror of punishment, for she cannot
discriminate between good and evil.”
It so happened that one day Keshav the Brahman went to the marriage of
a certain customer of his,[118] and his son repaired to the house of a
spiritual preceptor in order to read. During their absence, a young man
came to the house, when the Sweet Jasmine’s mother, inferring his good
qualities from his good looks, said to him, “I will give to thee my
daughter in marriage.” The father also had promised his daughter to
a Brahman youth whom he had met at the house of his employer; and the
brother likewise had betrothed his sister to a fellow student at the
place where he had gone to read.
After some days father and son came home, accompanied by these two
suitors, and in the house a third was already seated. The name of the
first was Tribikram, of the second Baman, and of the third Madhusadan.
The three were equal in mind and body, in knowledge, and in age.
Then the father, looking upon them, said to himself, “Ho! there is one
bride and three bridegrooms; to whom shall I give, and to whom shall
I not give? We three have pledged our word to these three. A strange
circumstance has occurred; what must we do?”
He then proposed to them a trial of wisdom, and made them agree that he
who should quote the most excellent saying of the wise should become his
daughter’s husband.
Quoth Tribikram: “Courage is tried in war; integrity in the payment of
debt and interest; friendship in distress; and the faithfulness of a
wife in the day of poverty.”
Baman proceeded: “That woman is destitute of virtue who in her father’s
house is not in subjection, who wanders to feasts and amusements, who
throws off her veil in the presence of men, who remains as a guest
in the houses of strangers, who is much devoted to sleep, who drinks
inebriating beverages, and who delights in distance from her husband.”
“Let none,” pursued Madhusadan, “confide in the sea, nor in whatever has
claws or horns, or who carries deadly weapons; neither in a woman, nor
in a king.”
Whilst the Brahman was doubting which to prefer, and rather inclining
to the latter sentiment, a serpent bit the beautiful girl, and in a few
hours she died.
Stunned by this awful sudden death, the father and the three suitors
sat for a time motionless. They then arose, used great exertions,
and brought all kinds of sorcerers, wise men and women who charm away
poisons by incantations. These having seen the girl said, “She cannot
return to life.” The first declared, “A person always dies who has been
bitten by a snake on the fifth, sixth, eighth, ninth, and fourteenth
days of the lunar month.” The second asserted, “One who has been bitten
on a Saturday or a Tuesday does not survive.” The third opined, “Poison
infused during certain six lunar mansions cannot be got under.” Quoth
the fourth, “One who has been bitten in any organ of sense, the lower
lip, the cheek, the neck, or the stomach, cannot escape death.” The
fifth said, “In this case even Brahma, the Creator, could not restore
life--of what account, then, are we? Do you perform the funeral rites;
we will depart.”
Thus saying, the sorcerers went their way. The mourning father took up
his daughter’s corpse and caused it to be burnt, in the place where dead
bodies are usually burnt, and returned to his house.
After that the three young men said to one another, “We must now seek
happiness elsewhere. And what better can we do than obey the words of
Indra, the God of Air, who spake thus?--
“‘For a man who does not travel about there is no felicity, and a good
man who stays at home is a bad man. Indra is the friend of him who
travels. Travel!
“‘A traveller’s legs are like blossoming branches, and he himself grows
and gathers the fruit. All his wrongs vanish, destroyed by his exertion
on the roadside. Travel!
“‘The fortune of a man who sits, sits also; it rises when he rises; it
sleeps when he sleeps; it moves well when he moves. Travel!
“‘A man who sleeps is like the Iron Age. A man who awakes is like the
Bronze Age. A man who rises up is like the Silver Age. A man who travels
is like the Golden Age. Travel!
“‘A traveller finds honey; a traveller finds sweet figs. Look at the
happiness of the sun, who travailing never tires. Travel!”’
Before parting they divided the relics of the beloved one, and then they
went their way.
Tribikram, having separated and tied up the burnt bones, became one of
the Vaisheshikas, in those days a powerful sect. He solemnly forswore
the eight great crimes, namely: feeding at night; slaying any animal;
eating the fruit of trees that give milk, or pumpkins or young bamboos:
tasting honey or flesh; plundering the wealth of others; taking by force
a married woman; eating flowers, butter, or cheese; and worshipping the
gods of other religions. He learned that the highest act of virtue is
to abstain from doing injury to sentient creatures; that crime does not
justify the destruction of life; and that kings, as the administrators
of criminal justice, are the greatest of sinners. He professed the five
vows of total abstinence from falsehood, eating flesh or fish, theft,
drinking spirits, and marriage. He bound himself to possess nothing
beyond a white loin-cloth, a towel to wipe the mouth, a beggar’s dish,
and a brush of woollen threads to sweep the ground for fear of treading
on insects. And he was ordered to fear secular affairs; the miseries of
a future state; the receiving from others more than the food of a day
at once; all accidents; provisions, if connected with the destruction
of animal life; death and disgrace; also to please all, and to obtain
compassion from all.
He attempted to banish his love. He said to himself, “Surely it was
owing only to my pride and selfishness that I ever looked upon a woman
as capable of affording happiness; and I thought, ‘Ah! ah! thine eyes
roll about like the tail of the water-wagtail, thy lips resemble the
ripe fruit, thy bosom is like the lotus bud, thy form is resplendent as
gold melted in a crucible, the moon wanes through desire to imitate the
shadow of thy face, thou resemblest the pleasure-house of Cupid; the
happiness of all time is concentrated in thee; a touch from thee would
surely give life to a dead image; at thy approach a living admirer would
be changed by joy into a lifeless stone; obtaining thee I can face all
the horrors of war; and were I pierced by showers of arrows, one glance
of thee would heal all my wounds.’
“My mind is now averted from the world. Seeing her I say, ‘Is this the
form by which men are bewitched? This is a basket covered with skin; it
contains bones, flesh, blood, and impurities. The stupid creature who
is captivated by this--is there a cannibal feeding in Currim a greater
cannibal than he? These persons call a thing made up of impure matter a
face, and drink its charms as a drunkard swallows the inebriating liquor
from his cup. The blind, infatuated beings! Why should I be pleased or
displeased with this body, composed of flesh and blood? It is my duty to
seek Him who is the Lord of this body, and to disregard everything which
gives rise either to pleasure or to pain.’”
Baman, the second suitor, tied up a bundle of his beloved one’s ashes,
and followed--somewhat prematurely--the precepts of the great lawgiver
Manu. “When the father of a family perceives his muscles becoming
flaccid, and his hair grey, and sees the child of his child, let him
then take refuge in a forest. Let him take up his consecrated fire and
all his domestic implements for making oblations to it, and, departing
from the town to the lonely wood, let him dwell in it with complete
power over his organs of sense and of action. With many sorts of pure
food, such as holy sages used to eat, with green herbs, roots, and
fruit, let him perform the five great sacraments, introducing them with
due ceremonies. Let him wear a black antelope-hide, or a vesture of
bark; let him bathe evening and morning; let him suffer the hair of
his head, his beard and his nails to grow continually. Let him slide
backwards and forwards on the ground; or let him stand a whole day on
tiptoe; or let him continue in motion, rising and sitting alternately;
but at sunrise, at noon, and at sunset, let him go to the waters and
bathe. In the hot season let him sit exposed to five fires, four blazing
around him, with the sun above; in the rains let him stand uncovered,
without even a mantle, where the clouds pour the heaviest showers;
in the cold season let him wear damp clothes, and let him increase by
degrees the austerity of his devotions. Then, having reposited his holy
fires, as the law directs, in his mind, let him live without external
fire, without a mansion, wholly silent, feeding on roots and fruit.”